Mystery in Jungle of Papua

There are many reasons someone might have wanted to kill Theys Eluay.

An imposing figure with his curly white beard and stout frame, the charismatic tribal chief had a large following--and a dark past.

He became the foremost independence leader of Indonesian Papua and a hero to his people. But he also had once been a government collaborator and military informant who may have played a part in government-sponsored killing. He had ties to the powerful Indonesian army and to organized crime. He had questionable dealings with timber companies and cash to burn. He had nine wives and a huge ego. Most recently, the government called him a traitor.

He was last seen alive in November after leaving a lavish party at an army base here. He was found dead the next morning in the back seat of his deluxe Toyota van on a deserted jungle road. Investigators concluded that he had been suffocated with a plastic bag.

It was a chillingly modern way to die here in Indonesian Papua, a forbidding province of jungles and mountains where some tribes still live a Stone Age existence.

Eluay’s death devastated the independence movement and caused an outpouring of grief in Papua, which was known until recently as Irian Jaya. The 64-year-old leader was beloved by many for his generosity, his spontaneity, his habit of speaking his mind. Many called him Bapak, an Indonesian word for sir or father.

He was buried near his home in a field where children once played soccer. Thousands of mourners came to the funeral, overflowing into the street and climbing onto rooftops to watch. Many wept. His grave is now a shrine, watched over day and night by loyal young followers.

*

New Guinea, an island twice the size of California, lies just south of the equator and north of Australia. Its dense, humid jungles and snow-capped mountains are home to many tribes making the painful leap to the modern world.

The island is split between the country of Papua New Guinea, which once was colonized by Britain and Australia, and the Indonesian province of Papua, which once was ruled by the Dutch. The name Papua, taken from the Malay word for curly-haired, was given to the people of the island by explorers 500 years ago.

It wasn’t until 1938--a year after Eluay was born--that the outside world discovered the Baliem Valley in the central highlands of Papua, today a stronghold of the independence movement. There, explorers found a primitive people whose way of life had survived unchanged for thousands of years.

Men wore nothing more than feathers in their hair and a koteka, a long gourd to cover the penis. Women wore only grass skirts. Shells were their money.

Today, many still live in traditional thatched huts called honai, sharing them with their pigs. They hunt with wooden spears and arrows. They chew betel nut, staining the ground red where they spit out the juice. Some men still wear kotekas and some women still follow the tradition of cutting off a finger each time a loved one dies.

Even as many Papuans live in primitive conditions, they are surrounded by riches. The territory, Indonesia’s wealthiest province, is home to an enormous gold and copper mine, U.S.-owned Freeport. In the north, huge oil and gas reserves are under development by British Petroleum. The island has the largest rain forest outside the Amazon, and army officers have made fortunes shipping timber and sandalwood.

“Why is the Papuan wealth being taken away to build Indonesia and America?” Yefeth Yelemaken, chief of the Ngalik tribe, asked shortly before he died last month at 45. “We are very angry because our natural resources are taken out of Papua and then people ask why we are so poor. We’re like the mouse that died in a rice house.”

When Papua’s chiefs declared independence from the Netherlands in 1961, Indonesia insisted it owned the territory. Fearing the rise of communism in the region, Washington sided with Indonesia and pressed the Dutch to pull out. The territory came under nominal U.N. authority in 1963, but by then Indonesian troops had already moved in and taken control on the ground.

In 1965, when he was 27, Eluay became chief of the Sereh Sentani tribe. In Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, Gen. Suharto seized power and established a dictatorship that would last for years. But that made little difference to West Papua--it was already under Indonesian military rule.

In 1969, the United Nations called a plebiscite to decide Papua’s fate but didn’t grant each Papuan the right to vote.

Instead, the Indonesian military chose 1,026 tribal leaders to represent the populace. Soldiers held them under guard for weeks at community halls and army barracks. Some were given gifts and prostitutes. Some were threatened with death. In the end, they gave their allegiance to Indonesia--many of them repeating a pledge of loyalty in Indonesian, a language they didn’t know.

“The soldiers pointed a gun at them and told them to say they were part of Indonesia,” said Hubula chief Kayo Huby, whose father was one of the 1,026. “People say they were forced to say the words, but actually they didn’t even understand what they were saying.”

The U.N. called the vote the “Act of Free Choice.”

*

Eluay was 32 when he voted to join Indonesia. Unlike most chiefs, he believed it was the best choice. He told friends he was “true red and white,” the colors of the Indonesian flag.

He cooperated with the military and provided intelligence about the resistance movement. Years later--when he was imprisoned on charges of treason--he confessed to friends that he had given authorities information that led to the death of independence fighters.

“I think he played quite a significant role as an informant,” said Thaha Alhamid, who became a close friend when the two were jailed together. “He felt that he had played a role in state crime.”

In 1977, Eluay was rewarded with a seat in the provincial parliament as a member of Suharto’s ruling Golkar party. By then, Indonesia had renamed the province Irian Jaya.

While a new member of parliament, Eluay courted Yannieke Ohe. She was 17 and he was 39.

According to Papuan tradition, a chief can have as many wives as he likes. In 1985, she became the ninth and most public of his wives.

Eluay’s transformation to Papuan hero began in the early 1990s. Denied reappointment to parliament by his party after 15 years in office, he became preoccupied with restoring his name. He saw that his future lay in fighting for independence.

Although he was closely tied to the government, he was one of the few chiefs with the stature to unite Papua. His defection in the late 1990s gave the separatist movement a big boost.

Under Indonesian rule, human rights activists say, the military has killed at least 100,000 Papuans. Most feared of the army units is Kopassus, short for Special Forces Command, widely believed to be involved in the torture, killing and disappearance of civilians.

The United States came under fire in the 1990s for training Kopassus and publicly halted the program, but Pentagon documents show that the U.S. secretly continued its training until 1999.

The Asian economic crisis in 1997 and the resignation of Suharto in May 1998 triggered new hope for democracy and self-determination throughout Indonesia. From the Moluccas to Borneo to the northern tip of Sumatra, separatist armies, religious militias and traditional headhunters began waging war to assert control over their historic lands, threatening the breakup of the country.

Papuans’ dream of freedom grew as they watched events unfold in East Timor, 600 miles to the west. Indonesia forcibly annexed the territory in 1975, but the new government agreed in 1999 to let East Timor decide its future. When the province voted overwhelmingly for independence, army-sponsored militia groups retaliated with a wave of killing and destruction. Nevertheless, East Timor was free, and Papuans saw the referendum as a precedent.

In June 2000, Papuan leaders held a congress and reasserted their independence. When it came time to select a leader, Eluay stood up and proposed that he be named to the top post, chairman of the Papua Presidium Council. The chiefs agreed.

*

The steep walls of the Baliem Valley narrow at the southern end, and high above the valley floor is the village of Anjelma. As in scores of other mountain villages nearby, the Dani tribespeople subsist mainly on the sweet potatoes they grow in their terraced gardens.

“The Indonesian government has been here a long time, but as you can see, our condition is just like dried fish,” said chief Abner Meage, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his hut as a pig grunted in a corner.

On Oct. 6, 2000, two Anjelma men were among the victims of a shooting in Wamena, the valley’s main town, one of the bloodiest episodes the region has seen. Early that morning, police cut down a flagpole flying the banned Morning Star flag, a revered symbol of independence, then killed one man who tried to stop them and wounded 17 others.

Word spread quickly and Dani men throughout the valley grabbed their bows and spears and hurried to the town on foot. By midday, 1,000 warriors were arrayed against the police when gunmen opened fire from nearby homes, killing six Papuans. Believing police had ambushed them, angry tribesmen torched the houses and shot or speared everyone who came out. They killed 46 people, mostly Muslim settlers from other islands. No one was ever prosecuted for the killings, and the conduct of the police was never investigated.

Seven weeks later, Eluay was arrested on treason charges. Indonesian authorities accused him of plotting Papua’s violent secession.

In jail, he was diagnosed with a prostate ailment and sent to Jakarta, where he had three operations and lost 65 pounds. He was released in April 2001 but still faced trial. His attorney says the government had a weak case and would never have won in court.

Six months after he was freed, Kopassus soldiers began hanging around Eluay’s house in the town of Sentani. They arrived uninvited and stayed for hours, playing with his children and eating the family’s food.

Yannieke said she didn’t like them there but that as a chief’s wife, she could not turn anyone away. Now she sees their presence as part of the plot against her husband.

“I didn’t know that behind their friendliness was cruelty,” she said. “Their job was to make friends, to see his habits and to monitor him.”

*

The provincial commander of Kopassus, Col. Hartomo, arrived at Eluay’s house on Nov. 10 with an early Christmas present.

Hartomo, who, like many Indonesians, uses one name, also brought an invitation to an Indonesian Heroes Day dinner that night at the Hamadi army base in Jayapura, the Papuan capital. Eluay reluctantly agreed to attend.

Eluay arrived at the dinner in his van with tinted windows, a gift from a local logging company. His regular driver, Aristoteles Masoka, was behind the wheel.

The party to honor Indonesian soldiers was still going on when Eluay left a little before 10 p.m. The colonel walked him to his car. As usual, Eluay rode in the front passenger seat.

Within minutes, Eluay’s van reached a winding, uphill stretch of two-lane road. As the car rounded a curve, another Toyota van with tinted windows overtook it, hit the front end and forced it to stop.

Christian Maniagasi was riding his motorcycle to Jayapura when he came across the two vans stopped in the road. At first it appeared they’d had an accident. Then he saw three men, one with a gun, trying to pull the driver from one of the vehicles.

The driver tried to hang on to the vehicle but fell when he was kicked from inside. It was Masoka.

The road was busy that Saturday night, and other vehicles stopped. Masoka got up, ran to one of the cars and jumped in. Isak, a passenger in the car, knew Masoka, but the two didn’t recognize each other until the car was moving. “I saw a man with bruises and blood on his mouth,” Isak recalled. “He kept saying, ‘Oh God, please help my Bapak.’ ”

Masoka asked to go immediately to the army base. Perhaps he thought that Hartomo was unaware of the kidnapping and would save Eluay. When Masoka arrived, he left the car without a word.

Yeret Imowi, 27, was working at the party and remembers Masoka walking in with two soldiers. Imowi heard him say that his car, with his boss inside, had been taken.

“If Bapak dies, what will I say to his family?” he asked. Masoka took out his phone. One soldier knocked it to the ground and the other kicked it away. No one has seen him since.

*

Within hours of Eluay’s death, Hartomo called a news conference and denied that Kopassus was involved. He promised to find the killers, but as the facts emerged, his claim of innocence unraveled. In April and May, military police arrested nine Kopassus officers and soldiers in the slaying. Hartomo headed the list.

A 10th Kopassus soldier was arrested after he allegedly tried to shoot Imowi.

Papua Police Chief Made M. Pastika said the evidence is strong. “The indication is clear that the kidnapping and murder were done by a group of people from the Kopassus headquarters in Hamadi,” he said.

What may never be known is who ordered Eluay’s killing.

The police examined whether Eluay might have been slain by hard-line freedom fighters. They looked into his private life and investigated two of his female friends. They tried to track his money.

Eluay always flew business class, the police chief said, and three or four days a week checked into the prominent Matoa Hotel in Jayapura, an hour from his home. He always paid cash. He often gave the equivalent of $10 bills to boys and police officers around the hotel, a big sum in Jayapura. “We think, ‘What is his business?’ ” Pastika said. “We don’t know.”

Eluay received the van from the Djajanti Group, an Indonesian timber company headed by Suharto’s foster brother. Police suspect that Eluay received cash from logging companies, but they have found no evidence of illegal payoffs.

Eluay’s allies acknowledge that he had business ties to the army. Companies connected to the military had to deal with him because he was the top tribal chief. Sometimes the military called him in to settle conflicts between loggers and local tribes.

Nevertheless, police found no indication that his killing was triggered by a business deal gone bad.

Many Eluay supporters believe he was assassinated by the government under the orders of President Megawati Sukarnoputri to crush Papua’s growing separatist movement. Others suspect a military plot that bypassed the normal chain of command, aiming to embarrass the president and reassert army control over the province.

Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, the army commander in Papua and Hartomo’s superior, said he didn’t know who ordered Eluay’s murder.

“There was no order from the Indonesian military commander to me to do that or from me to my soldiers to do the killing,” he said. “I also want to know who the mastermind is. The sooner the better.”

The suspects will be tried by a military tribunal. No date has been set for a trial.

Eluay’s death left the independence movement in shock and disarray. No strong leader has emerged to take his place.

In January, Indonesia granted Papua autonomy, promising to give the provincial government more authority and a greater share of revenue. As further appeasement, Jakarta renamed the province Papua.

But so far, the modest concessions have not weakened Papuans’ desire for independence, and many believe that autonomy is an empty promise. Even if more money stays in the province, they say, it will land in the pockets of Indonesian settlers, not indigenous Papuans.

A few hundred separatist guerrillas fight on in the jungle, but most chiefs recognize that Papuans have little chance of beating the well-armed Indonesians. They advocate nonviolence and hope to persuade the international community to reverse its decision granting Papua to Indonesia.

In Sentani, Yannieke Eluay often walks the short distance to her husband’s grave with its simple wooden cross.

Now 42, she has curly black hair and a broad face. Her teeth are discolored from chewing betel nut, and a lump of the stuff bulges in her cheek. She wears a T-shirt with a picture of her dead husband and the phrase in English: “Assassination of Theys Hiro Eluay, State Crime in West Papua.”

She hopes his death will inspire the liberation movement and that soon Papua will be free.

“As the leader of Papua, he had the courage to speak about independence, and that made people proud of him. Indonesia thought that he would destroy the nation. What I saw was that he was trying to build a nation. His death is like a great gift to the people to go into the future, to be free of Indonesia.”